Now we know exactly where we have to get to

Liam Dunne wore a wistful smile when he finally left the Wexford dressing-room late yesterday afternoon.

His team had scored 2-16 against Kilkenny and displayed no little character and skill and yet they left their home ground on the back of a defeat that was utterly comprehensive.

Division 1B it wasn’t.

“It is fantastic for our fellas to get that,” he said. “We have nine weeks to the championship and we know exactly where we are now. If something might have happened there and God had looked down on us and we’d won the game it would have only been papering over the cracks.

“In fairness to the guys, they battled well and they took a massive amount out of the league. It was fantastic to get that game today. We were down in Páirc Uí Rinn (against Cork) last week and Kilkenny today. We couldn’t have written he script any better. Now we know exactly where we have to get to.”

Wexford had emerged from the group stages with a record you could have predicted beforehand — victories over Antrim, Offaly and Laois and defeats to Limerick and Cork. This too worked out as most would have imagined. For 35 minutes they hung in there but at no stage did they ever give the impression they could go and do something legendary. That is where Wexford are at. Still. The rod that broke their back came within moments of the restart when some naïve defending allowed Kilkenny the opportunity to get the day’s serious business out of the way early with TJ Reid’s goal starting the rot.

“That was a killer blow, it was just a simple mistake by Matthew (O’Hanlon). They’ll punish you because that’s what they do.

“You don’t need to be giving them simple opportunities, they’ll create opportunities themselves.

“The better teams will do that to you and there’s no better team than Kilkenny to punish you. It was an uphill battle after that. Whatever bit of momentum we had going in at half-time after pulling it back (was lost).”

They may share a border but these counties remain worlds apart. Dunne happened to face Kilkenny as a player during one of the rare points in time when the Cats didn’t enjoy hegemony in Leinster but hopes that his managerial stint may see a parallel seem distant.

The former All-Star defender talked about having to rob Peter to pay Paul when moving Diarmuid O’Keeffe from midfield to wing-back. Brian Cody could spring men like Henry Shefflin, Michael Fennelly and Tommy Walsh from the bench.

“That tells you how well our fellas were playing, you see? Look at, that’s what they have. People were talking to me last year, saying Kilkenny are gone, I was saying to myself ‘they’ve never been gone in the history of the GAA’, I don’t know what fellas are talking about.

“When you dissect down the game, they just don’t put pressure on you in one part of the field, they put pressure on you all over the field.

“I’m well pleased that we scored 2-16 or 2-17, I’m not sure … I said to the boys before we left that 2014 is only starting now. Onwards and upwards.”